Sandra Stamenkovic
Email
Q
WE BOUGHT an ex-demo 2004 Ford Territory SX Ghia AWD in 2006 and it has done 52,000km. In 2007 it had a CV joint leak, which was repaired under warranty by the dealer, but in April this year a nut fell off the lower balljoint on the driver's side. Fortunately I was driving in our street and doing 10km/h or so when it happened, because the arm fell and hit the rim, locking the steering. The nut was later found in my street. Because the car was no longer under warranty I had it repaired at Pedders. The people there suggested the nut would have to have been removed to fix the earlier CV joint leak, and it probably wasn't correctly tightened. When I approached Ford they asked me to take the car to the dealer so they could look at it, but I explained that it had already been repaired. I want them to tell me why this happened and tell me if it will happen again, but they won't. I am extremely frustrated at the way Ford have handled this. Can you help? Will it happen again?
Graham Smith
Ask Smithy
A
NUTS don't fall off cars without a reason, and it's impossible for me or Ford to say it won't happen again. It sounds to me as though yours is another case of balljoint failure on the Territory. It seems similar to the case of Melbourne mum Tina Heraudeau, who had the right-front balljoint fail on her Territory. My view is Ford has failed to identify the balljoint problem in their testing of the Territory. You need to keep the pressure on Ford to give you an explanation.
